She made a long speech about the future generations, and returned to her starting point: the urgent need for a subscription.
"Bless the girl! She shall have the subscription!" said the Senator, who was still looking at Regina.
"And the audience also?"
He promised the audience. At that moment he was smiling just as he smiled in the portrait and in the mirror; and Regina perceived that he pitied the poor Italian journalist and was thinking of the moral physiognomy of the working Englishwomen.
"But why the audience?" asked Regina, emboldened and imitating the Senator's smile; "subscriptions are all very well—up to a certain point—but the audience——"
"It's a moral support. With reference to my principles——"
"Yes, yes; a moral support," interrupted the Senator, still smiling.
Regina felt rebellious. This man who found the moral physiognomy of the women abroad so different from the moral physiognomy of the incapable, enslaved Italians—why did he not make Arduina understand the errors of her method?
"But," she cried, almost angrily, "if you can't do without assistance, moral or material, it's better—to do nothing at all! We are always despoilers; and it's all one if we despoil fathers, husbands, lovers, or royalty and the Government!